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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24777430">Amaranth, Daffodil, Apple Blossom, Pine</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/auxanges/pseuds/auxanges'>auxanges</a>, <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/liasangria/pseuds/liasangria'>liasangria</a>, <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/tantivy/pseuds/tantivy'>tantivy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Homestuck</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Fae, Fae &amp; Fairies, Humans Becoming Fae, M/M, Mixed Media, Multi, Transformation</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 08:41:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,117</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24777430</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/auxanges/pseuds/auxanges, https://archiveofourown.org/users/liasangria/pseuds/liasangria, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tantivy/pseuds/tantivy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The histories of the Four Kings of Our Court are storied and many, debated hotly by tellers of tales and scholars alike.</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>– an excerpt from <i>The Romance of Seasons</i>, by [name unknown]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jake English/Dirk Strider, John Egbert/Dave Strider, John Egbert/Dirk Strider, John Egbert/Jake English/Dave Strider/Dirk Strider</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Homestuck Polyswap 2020 - Derse</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Brilliance and Light</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/GloamingMage/gifts">GloamingMage</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>
  <i>– A painting of the Aspects of the Four Kings, hung in the Library of the Four Kings, just over the entryway</i>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Twining Tale</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Summer weeps, though, come the May<br/>For the change towards bonny day<br/>His steps are slow, his head hangs down<br/>Heavier for his weighty crown<br/>For Summer's love of pretty things<br/>Belies the change from frost to spring<br/>He sees the snow, the ice, the cold<br/>And keeps all that the Winter's told<br/>Summer turns and fall arrives<br/>Still, their changing fight survives<br/>The shifting in the Winter wind<br/>And in the Summer's breezes twinned</p><p> </p><p>Come find them where the water plays<br/>Come sail them off towards different days<br/>Take one; want both, and nearly fight<br/>O'er what you might have lost that night<br/>And Winter's bite grows e'ermore cold<br/>And Summer's never done what's told</p><p> </p><p>A pretty human, lost, then found<br/>Wand'ring through the lonely ground<br/>Eyes of greenest days so bright<br/>Eyes to match a sky alight<br/>Remind him of his Summer's heat<br/>Remind him that they chanced to meet<br/>He'll steal away with green-eyed boy<br/>Kept, and found, as Winter's toy</p><p> </p><p>Come find them where the sun is new<br/>Come take them where the water's blue<br/>Take one; want both, and argue long<br/>O'er what was once a bond so strong<br/>And Winter's snarl grows sharp and proud<br/>And Summer's anger's roaring loud</p><p> </p><p>A pretty human, found, and lost<br/>Through travels lengthy, great in cost<br/>Eyes of berries, brightest red<br/>Eyes that call to frost instead<br/>Remind him of his Winter's rime<br/>Remind him that they once passed time<br/>He'll steal away with red-eyed boy<br/>Lost, and kept, as Summer's toy</p><p> </p><p>So one and one's now two and two<br/>Each with untrod paths to choose<br/>To Summer's war? To Winter's side?<br/>To venture where the fae abide?<br/>Choosing, changing, grow your horns<br/>Explore beyond the pricking thorns<br/>Come claim the gift no birthright gives<br/>Come see how the season lives<br/>Come find him, Vernal, come what may<br/>Come make the darkness into day<br/>Come find him, Autumn, as you go<br/>Come turn the daytime syrup slow<br/>Come crown these newly chosen kings<br/>Come show them what the year-change brings</p><p> </p><p> </p><p><em>– Introduction to the </em>Saga of Seasons<em>, found in the Library of the Four Kings by Feferi Peixes [on the Midnight that Opened the First Day of Rain]</em></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. First Steps</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There are way weirder ways to start out a morning than this, and holding onto that fact is about the only thing that's still keeping you sane right now.</p><p>For one, you didn't wake up on the morning of your twenty-fourth birthday to immediate regret, on account of thinking you'd slept with some random dude who then didn't have the foresight to sneak out in the middle of the night and draped over you naked. Oh, no, that pleasure went to your best friend, one Eridan Ampora.</p><p>Who'd then, of course, dressed said naked man, concocted a crazy story about said naked man, and dragged the problem (said formerly naked man) over here to dump into your lap.</p><p>You wish you weren't being literal about this. You are unfortunately being really, <em>really</em> literal about this.</p><p> </p><p>"I'm tellin you, Fef," Eridan says, the wild look in his eyes belying the patient tone he's been using for approximately the past half-hour, ever since you'd yelped and shoved a now hurt-looking "Jake" off of your lap. "He's Blackjack. I swear to you, he's—<em>he knows shit</em>, okay! I don't know how else to explain it! An I mean, look how he's behavin, I thought at first I'd had an ill-advised hookup but—"</p><p>Blackjack, Jack, Jake, Jakey, or Flufferbutt, AKA Eridan's beloved fluffle dog, AKA—</p><p>Okay, you need a sec.</p><p>"So you're trying to convince me that—"</p><p>"Jake," says the guy, helpfully and hopefully.</p><p>"—that Jake, is Blackjack."</p><p>"Yep."</p><p>"And...you didn't think to <em>look</em> for Blackjack to test this?"</p><p>Eridan's jaw drops, the look in his eyes goes even more wild—</p><p>And Jake rests a hand on his arm in the way you've seen Blackjack lift a paw up to settle on Eridan a thousand times, and Eridan's shoulders sink that way they do when Blackjack does that, and—</p><p>Okay, so. Maybe this morning is pretty fucking high up on the weirdness scale, but you think you're starting to believe them.</p><p>"Eridan," you say, and his attention snaps right towards you. "Okay! So! Tell me what you guys need me to do?"</p><p>Jake—Blackjack—gives you one of his signature adorably mournful looks. "I'd like to be able to turn back into a dog sometimes, please."</p><p>Holy shitting <em>hell</em> this is going to be worse than your dissertation week.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Being able to turn back into a dog turns out to mean he needs you to go tap into <em>those</em> connections that your mother prefers you don't speak about, the ones that you'd agree to pretend you didn't have until last year, the year you'd finally (mostly) gotten out from under her thumb.</p><p>Basically, you have to hit up your dad's side of the family, which had expanded to include <em>all</em> of the friends your relatives had made.</p><p> </p><p>Finding someone willing to point you in the right direction hadn't been nearly as hard as figuring out what the right direction actually was, and when you'd finally gotten all of <em>that</em> sorted out, you'd been stuck with instructions that sounded like something—well, like something out of a fairy tale.</p><p>Because technically, that's what it was: Jake had, in one way or another, annoyed one of the Fair Folk enough to be the target of some kind of curse (or backhanded blessing) that left him with two thumbs and no sense of self preservation.</p><p>Yeah, okay. Sometimes being a human sucked, you'd own that, but you still weren't sure that it could be counted as a curse when it had made him so damn <em>cute</em>.</p><p> </p><p>Either way—whatever he'd done that had upset a fae, whatever you'd done to be the one stuck with access to their world, you'd ended up here on a double combination of sad boys, two undeniably fluffy lads looking at you like their hearts were being torn out right this very second, and perking the fuck up once you'd agreed to go on the "magic adventure". Gods, you were so screwed.</p><p> </p><p>Jake bounces on his heels to your left, Eridan adjusts the strap on his pack to your right, and you reach out to grab their hands, your focus on the swirling mist before you. For a moment—just a moment, that catch of time between intention and taking that first step, between lifting your foot up and setting it down—you could swear you hear music.</p>
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